What is
the chief reason Christ laid down his life on the cross? Most would say it was to
manifest God’s love. Some might say it was to show God’s great grace. A few
will say it was to save his people.But
while those things are reasons God sent his Son to lay down his life, none of
those are the chief reason.The chief
reason Christ laid down his life on the cross is found in our text this
morning.

Romans 3: 25: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that
are past, through the forbearance of God; 26: To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that
he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Proposition: The chief reason Christ died on the cross is to manifest
the righteousness of God.

GOD’S CHIEF ATTRIBUTE

God’s
chief attribute is righteousness/holiness.It means God always and only does right.God will not pour out his wrath and justice on therighteous.

Genesis 18: 23:
And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the
wicked? 24: Peradventure there
be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the
place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 25: That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the
righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that
be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

God
spared Sodom until he got one man out, that righteous man Lot.God will not pour out justice on the
righteous because God is righteous.The
Judge of all the earth only does right.

Likewise,
God will not spare the guilty.

Exodus 34: 7: Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon
the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

God will
not sweep your sins under the rug.Everything God does in judgment is done in righteousness. Therefore, God
will not spare the guilty sinner.

The whole
reason that God sent his only Son into the world was to declare God’s
righteousness.God sent his Son to manifest
that God is a righteous and just Judge. Listen carefully to what God says his
righteousness make him do:

Proverbs 17: 15: He that justifieth the wicked, and he
that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.

Proverbs 24:24: He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art
righteous; him shall the people curse, nations shall abhor him:

Beholding
how God commanded the earthly judges to judge, we see how God judges. This is
the only way God will judge.It is the
only way God can judge because he is holy.God only judges just judgment even as he commanded the judges,

Deuteronomy 16: 18:
Judges…shall judge the people with just judgment. 19: Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons,
neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert
the words [the judgment] of the righteous. 20: That which is altogether just shalt thou follow,…

So you
and I have a problem. We came into this world guilty sinners.

Romans 3: 10: As it is written, There is none righteous,
no, not one:

We cannot
justify ourselves by working out our own righteousness under the law.

Romans 3: 19:
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are
under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become
guilty before God. 20: Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by
the law is the knowledge of sin.

But there
is another problem. Every elect child who God determined to save are guilty and
God will by no means clear the guilty. How then can God be just and Justify his
guilty people?That is exactly the
righteousness God sent Christ to declare.God the Father sent his Son to manifest “how God can be just.”God
sent his Son to manifest how God can kill all his people under his justice so
that his law is honored.And God sent
his Son to manifest how, at the same time,“God
can be the Justifier.”He sent
Christ to declare how God can be merciful to his people and actually be the one
who justified us, while God executes us under the unyielding wrath of his holy
justice.This is the gospel. When men miss
this then they miss the gospel. When men do not preach this then they do not
preach the gospel. The manifestation of God’s righteousness is the very reason
he sent forth his Son.

THE ANSWER TO THE DILEMMA

Romans 3: 22:..the righteousness of God which
is by faith of Jesus Christ…25:
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,
to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through
the forbearance of God; 26: To
declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just,
and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

The
answer to the dilemma of how God can slay his people in justice and, at the
same time, justify his people is Christ Jesus the Son of God.Like as Adam represented his body, his
family, the Son of God is the last Adam, the Head of God’s elect.

Colossians 1: 18: And he is the head of the body, the
church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things
he might have the preeminence.

Ephesians 5: 23:…Christ is the Head of the church and he
is the Savior of the body…Christ…loved the church and gave himself for it.

Hebrews 2: 9: But we see Jesus, who was made a little
lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and
honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every [all God’s
elect]…11: For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of
one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,…14: Forasmuch then as the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same;
that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is,
the devil; 15: And deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 16: For verily he took not on him
the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. [God’s
elect] 17: Wherefore in all
things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might
be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to
make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 18: For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able
to succour them that are tempted.

“In all things it behooved Christ to be made
like unto his brethren.”We were flesh—the
invisible Son of God was made holy, sinless flesh that he might be the one fit
man who could take the place of his people, the spotless Lamb of God. We were under the law—he was made
under the law that he might redeem his people from the law. We were sin—he hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him. We were a curse—he was made a curse to redeem us from the curse
of the law.It behooved Christ to be
made like unto his brethren in all things.

For the
honor of our Redeemer, we dare not pass over this lightly. We dare not reduce
this to only a legal transaction, though it was a legal matter. But we dare not
reduce this to a teaching, an argument, a debate, a cold formula.Christ was made to bear sin and everything
that comes with sin, except corruption, in order to make it just for God to
pour out justice on him. Then by being made a curse Christ bore everything
required to pay sin’s penalty so that the justice of the law was honored. All
this Christ did to declare God perfectly righteous. This he did to justify his
people and put away our sin forever.

The shame of sin—sin is the most shameful thing there is. Our dear Savior
bore sin when he the bore the wrath of sinful men. He was despised and rejected
of men. His own disciples hid their faces from him. He became the song of the
drunkards. Men spat upon him and mocked him and cursed him. He bore the shame
of sin as he experienced all the effects of sin in his own body on the tree
being touched with all the same feeling of sin’s infirmities that you and I are
touched with. Worst of all before holy God his Father, he himself owned our sin
to be his alone and God the Judge owned it to be his alone.He was fully constituted sin and thus, he who
knew no sin, became sin and became guilty before God the Father and his holy,
righteous law.It is the only way a holy
and righteous God says that he can or will pour out justice on anyone.God says, “He that justifieth the wicked, and
he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.”How could God manifest his perfect righteousness if he commanded every
earthly judge never condemn a righteous man then he turned around and did what
he told judges was unjust for a judge to do? But oh what faithfulness, scripture
says Christ bore the cross, despising the shame.

Another part of sin and its penalty is sorrow—Christ said, “My
soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” He was so sorrowful it made him sweat blood.He said, “The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon
me; I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the Lord; O Lord, I beseech
thee, deliver my soul.”Christ
cries to you and me, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith
the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.”

Another part of sin and its penalty is that
it requires God’s desertion—he cried, “My God,
my God why hast thou forsaken me!” The world went dark!

Sin and its penalty is death—Christ Jesus died unto sin once.That one statement should settle it for us
that Christ was really made sin. Christ Jesus died.He died unto sin.But thank God men only do so once and it is
done!

Never forget his person—that one who bore all of this is God over all. God
purchased the church with his own blood. While as yet he bore our sin in his
body on the tree so that God was just to punish him, in his person, in his
heart, he himself bore up under all sin’s temptation, under all the devils temptation
and Christ Jesus remained faithful, looking to God his Fatther and his covenant.
Christ remained without sin. The holy, harmless, undefiled, faithful Lord Jesus
never transgressed the righteousness of the law himself.His heart remained set on God his Father so that
his heart was pure while as yet God made him bear our sin and our guilt before the
bar of justice so that God could be just to pour out justice on our one Head rather
than his people.

By his
suffering and death as the Substitute for his people God’s righteousness is
clearly, openly manifest for all to see—God
is just and God is the Justifier of him which believeth in the Lord Jesus.

Here is
the good news for Christ’s people, like as Adam was head of all who have and
shall be born of him, Christ is Head of all who have and shall be born of him.So as we were in Adam and did what he did and
became sin and died, all God’s elect were in Christ and did what he did and
were made righteous and alive forevermore.

Romans 5: 19: For as by one man’s disobedience many were
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Romans 6: 6:
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of
sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7: For he that is dead is freed from
sin. 8: Now if we be dead with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more;
death hath no more dominion over him. 10:
For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God. 11: Likewise reckon ye
also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord.

REMISSION OF SINS THAT ARE PAST

Romans 3: 25: Whom God hath set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

What
does it mean that Christ declared his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance
of God?

One, it means due to Christ being Surety for his people
from before the foundation of the Lord, God was righteous to justify every
believer even before Christ died. The blood of bulls and goats never put away
sin.But Christ is the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. The one
reason God forebear so that he did not destroy the world when Adam sinned is
because Christ has entered covenant with God the Father to honor God’s law and
justify his people.Therefore, because
it was impossible for Christ to fail, in the mind and purpose of God, it was
done! He is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. God is eternal and
so is Christ’s redemption. His people were and are justified in purpose from eternity in Christ’s
Suretyship, justified in deed at the
cross in Christ laying down his life, justified experimentally when Christ is formed in us and God gives us faith
to believe on Christ and justified finally
when stand robed in Christ’s righteousness and God says enter into my glory my
good and faithful servant.

Also, it means
God is righteous to pass over all our sins. The moment we sin, our sins are
past sins. But God is just to remit all our sins by the blood of Christ.

1 John 1:7: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his
Son cleanseth us from all sin.

Therefore,
understand, every sinner that has ever been saved past, present and future has
and shall be justified through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that he might be
just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.All who God justified in Christ, God shall
regenerate to spiritual life and grant faith to believe on Christ.Through faith God imputes the righteousness
of Christ because Christ has made his people righteous by his obedience.

Sinner,
have you found yourself believing on the Lord Jesus Christ? Is he your only
righteousness before God? If so, here is the good news.

Romans 8: 1: There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit.

God says
to every believer,

Isaiah 43:25: I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy
transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.